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“I’m just a P.I!” He shouts, his face grimacing as he squeezes his eyes closed.
I see my confusion mirrored in Luce’s eyes as we look at one another before I question further, “How are you connected to Alan?”
The guy opens his eyes, sweat pouring down his face as he looks up at me. “H-he said he’d pay me to do some digging on you and your crew. He was paying me more than I normally charge; how could I turn that down? But I didn’t know I’d be signing up for this shit. I didn’t want to help him, but I couldn’t see a way out!” He yells as blood drips into his eyes.
“Bullshit, you fucking cunt.” Luce growls as I seethe, my breathing choppy as I think of this motherfucker helping my father kidnap an innocent woman,my woman, for money. Fucking despicable.
The motherfucker lets loose a sarcastic laugh, “And how was I supposed to do that, huh? Fucking ask nicely?”
Luce lifts his boot and kicks the fucker’s wrist where it still lays against the asshole’s sternum, then drops into a squat and shoves his gun into guy’s screaming mouth.
“No, motherfucker. Like this.” Then he pulls the trigger.
The PI’s blood and brain matter splatters against the wall behind him, his lifeless eyes still staring into Luce’s angry green ones.
I want to be angry, to be pissed as fuck that Luce killed the only person we had with inside information, but truth be told, I was seconds away from doing it myself. I turn from the dead body and reach for the handle of the door, finding it unlocked.
I don’t open it, I just turn to Luce. “We need to go in quiet. I fear we’ve already made too much noise as it is. If we see girls, we do not rush to them until we sweep the area.”
Luce nods and steps to the wall beside the door, readying himself as I pull it wide and step in, keeping my back to the wall as we find ourselves standing in a short hallway. There are no doors except for the one at the end with a single bulb flickering above it.
I lean my ear against the wood, my breath held, as me and Luce listen for movement inside.
There’s a hum of electricity, but I hear no other sounds. Stepping back, I reach for the handle, twisting and finding it locked.
Luce turns back to the body outside of the exit door and riffles through the man’s pockets before coming back with keys in his hand and steps in front of me. After three failed attempts, the fourth key slides in with ease.
The built-up tension has my back cramping with the anticipation of getting my woman and Luce’s sister back, but the moment he opens the door and the smell of death reaches my nose through the face mask, it’s as though my whole body becomes weighted with mounds of dirt, like I’m being buried alive.
Are we too late?
Are they dead, gone to the afterlife on the unforgiving waves of brutality and abuse?
My mind and soul screamno!There’s no way the woman I’ve loved since I was a kid is dead, leaving me alone in a cold world without her. I can’t begin to even imagine Maxine, the girl who has been my family for the last four years, has left, taking her light with her. Fuck no.
I force myself to step forward, forcing the feeling of dread to the back of my mind as I search the dank room for the face of my angel. The room is dark, but the small bulb just outside the door washes the area in a dim glow, just enough to spot the discarded clothes of a woman on the floor in the corner to my right.
I continue to scan the room as I dip down and pick up the red jeans that Lexi wore the last time that I saw her alive.
No, she’s still alive. She can’t be dead, not now that I’m this much closer to finding her.
Luce taps me on the shoulder, his eyes hidden in the dark, but I can feel the waves of pain and anger rolling off of him like a raging sea. He points to the camera in the far corner that has no doubt seen us, especially if it has night vision, so we better act quickly.
Dropping the jeans that are torn to shit, I turn toward the rest of the room. The floor looks like it’s made of cobblestone, and it’s darkened by liquid that I can’t identify, but if the stench is anything to go on, it’s blood.
There are boxes everywhere creating a type of labyrinth in the room, some are empty, and others are filled with merchandise for the store above us. I walk through them, my breathing slow and even as the stench of death becomes stronger with each step I take. I stop and peek around each wall of boxes, until finally I reach the center of the room.
There, beneath the ring of light, is a wooden chair with dried blood on the armrests and broken zip ties hanging around them. On the floor directly in front of the chair is a dead man so bloated and rotted that I have to hold back my vomit as I stare at the broken skin and bodily fluids coating the stone beneath him. I can’t tell who he is, but his blood-stained clothes look like the attire of just a regular Joe. Leather bomber jacket, khaki pants, and worn brown boots.
Shit, is that Uriah?Lexi had a neighbor who had a major crush on my girl, always trying to get her to go out with him until I paid him an impromptu visit and not so nicely told him to back the fuck off. Why the fuck did Alan kill him, the guy was harmless as fuck.
“Max!” Luce whisper-shouts, and my eyes finally break away from the gruesome corpse, spotting Maxine’s auburn hair just outside the ring of light beyond the wooden chair. She lies on her side, her back to us with her hands tied together over her tailbone.
She’s in nothing but underwear, and there’s no mistaking the abuse she has faced. Fuck! We quickly break away from our spot and rush toward her, Luce dropping down beside her as I keep watch over the two siblings reuniting.
“Max? Maxine, it’s me your brother,” He quickly cuts through the plastic zip ties around her wrists before rolling her onto her back.
“Wake up, sis, c’mon.” I hear him choke out before roaring when he spots the dried blood on her inner thighs. Luce drops his forehead to Maxine’s, her eyes unseeing as Luce pulls her to him. I want to check her pulse badly, but the rigid way her limbs move tells me she’s long gone.
